(1) Indiana has, or rather, had, plenty of manufacturing, but it never had it of the sorts that surrounding and nearby Great Lakes states had it, and most crucially, it didn’t have it in the 1910-1960 time frame. Which means that the Great Migration of blacks out of the Deep South affected Indiana’s neighbors, but not much in Indiana itself. You’ll note the part of Indiana that had the most manufacturing and heavy industry, northwestern Indiana, Gary and surrounding areas, that’s the part of Indiana that’s most like Chicago and Detroit.

(2) Contra this reasoning in the Silver Mines, you have to remember that Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and would have won Ohio but for John Kasich being its current Governor. The reasons Trump won the surrounding or neighboring states will be the reason why Trump will have a much harder time winning in Indiana today. If Trump does win by a healthy margin, it will mainly be because he threw the TKO in the last two weeks, and Cruz voters have just plain given up.

In 2008 and 2012, the Republican primaries were held after McCain and Romney respectively had the nominations locked up mathematically, and while I think Trump has already thrown the TKO, he doesn’t have it mathematically, therefore, it is thought that Indiana voters are choosing whether to end it all tonight or give #NeverTrump some breathing room.

For the Democrats, Indiana was held at a time in 2008 when HRC had already started to put together a come from behind winning streak, and Rush Limbaugh had his listeners wreak havoc and vote for her, as McCain had it wrapped up by then.

Put the two together, and you can see why D8 was 3x R8.

Also remember Indiana was a traditionally red state that Obama turned blue in 2008 in November, the other being North Carolina, those two states being blue were a shock even to optimistic Democrats. They are also the only two states that flipped back in 2012.

Cruz is going to win the county that has Fort Wayne, and two small neighboring counties. The best reason my Google research can surmise is that that’s Indiana’s Amish country, or there must be a gaggle of Baptist type churches based there. If I was still in steady contact with Matt Parrott, he’d probably be able to tell me what’s up with that.

Cruz dropping out now means that he knows he won’t be able to keep Trump south of 1237. As it is, Trump only needs to win NJ and CA to get him over 1237, and we know he’ll do that, and we also know he’ll win WV, and he would even with Cruz in it.

Cruz should have know it wasn’t happening for him this year when Trump beat him in most of the South. I think we’re going to look back at that as the time when Trump really threw the TKO, and that Cruz should have dropped out after SEC Tuesday.

That which got Cruz this far was the same thing that meant that he wouldn’t make it all the way to the top. That is, being a lamestream conservative ideologue who plays by all the soi disant informal political campaigning rules. Like you’ve been saying, lamestream conservatism is trying to solve 1980′s already solved problems in 2016′s world.

The good news for him is that even in our era of the Presidency attaining more and more power over domestic issues, to match its near dictatorial power over foreign and military policy, being a United States Senator is still an enviable position; hell, I was one election away from being a staffer for one. I think that now that he realizes that the Presidency isn’t happening, Cruz will quit acting like he can or should be President, which I think was part of the reason why his Senate colleagues don’t much like him, and get to work being a good Senator. Also, part of the reason his colleagues disliked him is that he came right into the Senate thinking of the Presidency, they didn’t like him because they think he needs to win a couple of terms and pay his dues, and not jump ahead of older more experienced politicians. Now, Baraq Obama ran for and won the Presidency after barely working in the Senate after winning one term, but he was different for one very obvious reason: B-L-A-C-K. Cruz, while “Hispanic,” in terms of having a New World white Spaniard for a father and therefore his surname, wasn’t social justicey or civil rightsey enough for his election to be a profound or a first.

I can compare Ted Cruz to another Ted, that being Kennedy. At some point, he realized that the Presidency was never in the cards for him, and started getting down to business as a Senator. This is why he was able to go from being resented to being loved by Democrats.